Carter shook his head and rubbed his eyes. He had developed a massive headache. “Probably the right choice to cut once they went silent. If they’d done what I told them, they wouldn’t be dead.”
The man immediately looked relieved.
“Get the hell out of here.” Carter watched his truck get fueled up while he thought about his situation. He was down three, including the one guy who was most temperamental and unpredictable. It was not surprising that both guys he’d talked to named Stubbs as the one that had probably started firing, even though there was no way they could have known it for sure. Carter had been on the fence when the guy had volunteered because of that volatility. But he knew Stubbs was also really good in a crunch, fearless, and fierce.
A no-contact recon was not the right job for somebody like Stubbs, but he’d been restless and agitated, picking fights with the others for the past two days. Carter had to give him something to do, so he’d reluctantly brought him along for the scouting trip, and sent him off paired up with Willy, who was the most patient one on the crew. He’d hoped the two men would balance each other out, and things would be fine.
Except that Stubbs had not only gotten himself killed, but he’d taken Willy with him, as well as the guy that was being put in the ground just twenty steps away.
The only thing Carter could see as working for him right at that moment was that he’d only brought half his force out with him. The rest had spent the day in the house across the street from the gas station, working on all sorts of unpleasant surprises for the people of Bowman. Carter had promised he was going to burn that place to the ground, and he had no intention whatsoever of breaking it.
He decided to go check on the progress of his surprises, hoping that might lift his spirits some and convince him to keep going, despite the day’s losses.
15
From his office window, Tom Grossman saw Mark Thorssen coming back into Bowman from the east. Since the Event, it had been rare for the man to leave town, which piqued his curiosity, and he decided it was time to take a break. Since he’d recused himself from anything to do with Prange’s trial, the only work on his desk was a stack of tedious tasks related to keeping the stable things stable. For the first time since everything, he realized he was actually bored.
From his time in Desert Storm, he knew that was a dangerous thing in a combat zone, which he figured the entire United States was at this point. A walk and chat would definitely shake things up, he figured, so he grabbed his cane.
“Hey, my friend. How are you?” he asked when he intercepted Thorssen. The big man was walking along with another friend of his. Both had jump packs on their backs.
“Good. I was just up at the Meiers. Larry Williams took a hit yesterday.”
“Carter?” Grossman asked.
“Yep. Seems like he’s back in the area with his truck and ten guys. They tried sneaking up on the Meier folk while they were out working a field.”
“Larry the only one hurt?”
Thorssen scowled. “Only one from the Meiers. They were careful not to say how Carter’s crew came out.”
Grossman could guess why they hadn’t given any more details. If they told Thorssen there might be some wounded left behind, friend or foe, he would go to check on them. “What’s Larry’s condition?”
“Superficial shoulder wound. Judging by the wood splinters I cleaned out from inside and around the wound. I’d say he took a ricochet. He lost a lot of blood and ended up going into shock on the way back to the house from wherever the fight had been. The good thing is, they treated it properly, and then sent for me first thing this morning.”
“How bad of shock?” Grossman asked.
“Hard to determine second hand and after the fact. He was still anxious and confused when I saw him this morning, so I’m guessing it was pretty serious. I’ve prescribed bed rest and extra rations of iron-rich food for a few days to help him recover.”
“Think he’ll listen?”
“Bed rest, no, extra food, yes,” Thorssen said, smiling. “You know the kid. He’s as skinny as he is because he never stops moving.”
“How are things with Chuck Larson up there?” Grossman asked. “I saw his dad yesterday.”
“Seems to be doing good. Really well, actually, almost like he’s a different person. Even the ways he stands and looks at you have changed.”
“Glad to hear it. Though his parents probably don’t want to hear that he’s a new man now that he’s out of their house.”
“If it were me, I’d say that they’re living a disciplined, rigorously scheduled life up there, and the structure is doing him good. They always joked about sending him off to military school, as if that’s something people do anymore.”
It was really good to see Thorssen relaxed and joking around. Grossman wondered how soon he’d start feeling bored. Not that there was any risk of things at the firehouse slowing down too much anytime soon. He still had three burn victims he was caring for, plus another couple gunshot wounds that he needed to check on daily. On top of that, it looked like he had people hard at work finding substitutes for medicines and supplies that could be made or foraged.
Grossman had absolutely no doubt that Carter was never far from Thorssen’s mind either. If he’d gotten people as close as the Meier property the day before, it was likely that another attack could come at literally any moment.
With that in mind, he decided another tour of the town’s defensive lines was in order. While he walked, he wondered if Carter had intentionally gone out looking for the Meier homestead, or if they’d just been a target of opportunity, out working a field when he happened to come rolling down the road.
He also hoped he wasn’t being too optimistic when he suspected the Meiers had actually managed to fend Carter off, maybe even set him back a bit. If Larry was the only casualty they’d taken, and they were cagey about how many bad guys they may have taken down, he hoped that meant they’d come up decisively on top in the engagement.
But there were also only seven people up at the property. If Carter had brought his entire force to bear, he should have rolled the Meiers up, or at least caused a lot more damage before being driven off.
As Grossman approached his first stop, the highway Thorssen had just come into town on, he stopped and took a good look around. Prange and Carter had originally come in with eighteen men. That wasn’t the three-on-one advantage that was the school solution to taking on a fortified stronghold. On the other hand, nobody up at the Meier property had served in the military yet. They had no law enforcement experience, no real fighting experience—except for Chuck Larson—prior to the event. Whereas Carter’s men were criminals, accustomed to living in a violent world, with little regard for human life.
That was the thing Grossman knew he had to keep always at the front of his mind. Carter and his men were a different breed. The primary reason they’d been driven off before was likely the surprise factor of so many people all at once coming at them. They’d gotten separated from each other, most of them in twos or threes around town, some with local deputies that had suddenly turned on them.
When they came back. When, not if. Grossman knew they were going to be prepared for a fight, probably itching for it. They’d be driven by revenge and cruelty, kicked animals snarling and biting back.
He looked at his work crew, still setting up and improving their barriers and obstacles, shoring up trenches, setting traps. Looking at the defensive positions, he felt like he had on the eve of his first battle in Iraq. As commander, he had to decide which tanks to put out front. If the Soviet T-72s were still operational and the Republican Guard crews hadn’t broken, the men in his lead tanks had a very good chance of dying within the first few minutes of the battle to come.
The difference between Iraq and Bowman was that death for a tank crew was often relatively quick and ultimately impersonal. Grossman knew he couldn’t dwell on what might happen to anybody on the defensive lines taken by Carter’s men.
“What’s up, Mr. Mayor?” the youngest guy on the crew asked.
The greeting mercifully pulled him out of that rabbit hole. “Just checking in to see how everybody’s doing today.”
The whole crew decided it was a good time for a break. “We appreciate your daily walks out to check on us,” one said, glancing at Grossman’s bad leg.
“For all the work you all are doing out here, taking a pleasant walk around town is the least I can give in return.”
“After you were by the other day, we took and busted up some pavement across the road and rolled a couple big boulders up. If they try to bring that truck in again, it’ll have to do some hard, slow zig-zags even before it gets to the bridge.”
Grossman looked across the river. It was a shallower, wider waterway than the river that formed the west edge of town, and its banks had a gentler slope. It gave him a good view of the efforts his crew had put in. “I like the way you lined everything up with your trench line here. It’ll be hard for people on foot to hide behind the boulders without being exposed to one trench or the other.”
“My kid used to play some online castle siege game all the time, so he’d build these star forts with overlapping fields of fire and all that. He was out here delivering lunch while we were pushing rocks and set us straight.”
“When we get the internet back, tell him his subscription to the game is on me.”
Grossman spent a little more time with that crew before continuing on his rounds. Between his second and third stops, he was hailed from behind. It was his brother, Jerry, coming out of Frank Miller’s house, with two bottles of beer in his hand.
“Thank you, but you know I’m on the clock.”
“Can’t even enjoy an early liquid lunch?” Jerry said.
Grossman sighed heavily. “I’ve got to set the example here. But if you want to throw one back while we walk, that’s good.”
“Nah. I don’t drink alone,” Jerry said, jogging back to drop the beers on the porch before rejoining his brother. “If you don’t mind me coming along…”
Grossman paused for a second before saying, “No. Come on.”
The two men walked past several houses in silence.
Jerry finally opened up. “You know, I appreciate you not having me and the other guys hauled back in over what happened.”
“The circumstances under which the charges were dropped were unusual, to say the least, especially since Prange had absolutely no authority to do anything at all. But it happened, and to arrest you again and get it all started all over would just open up more wounds than we need to deal with right now.”
Jerry shrugged. “I think there’s more to it than that.”
“Yeah. I know I stepped in it, and I know that you guys were trying to call me out, and then everything just went spiraling out of anybody’s control. Don’t do anymore stupid shit like that and we’ll be good, all right?”
“Yeah. That’s my plan,” Jerry said. “I’ve been wondering. Is there still a place for me in town, or should I move back up to my cabin?”
“All on your own?” Grossman couldn’t believe he was hearing something so absurd. “I don’t think anybody should be on their own right now. Especially not around here and not right now.”
“You still worried they’re going to come back for Prange?”
“Do you see the preparations I’ve got people making?” Grossman asked.
Jerry looked ahead at the work crew they were approaching. “I figured this was a combination of keeping people busy and taking care of things that were important but hadn’t been immediately critical.”
“You and Miller getting out of the house at all?”
“We haven’t, actually. The way we threw in with Prange, we’re not very popular right now, so we’ve been laying low, and getting a lot of cold shoulder when we aren’t.”
Grossman carefully weighed out how much information he wanted to give his brother. “Yesterday, one of the families just outside of town had a run in with one of Carter’s scouting parties. One in the family wounded, maybe some of Carter’s hurt as well. This was less than two miles out.”
“I had no idea, really. This is the first time I’ve been out to talk to anybody in a while, when I saw you walking past. Just wanted to say I’m sorry about what happened.”
“I appreciate it,” Grossman said. “As long as you’re willing, and not looking to stir up anymore unnecessary trouble, you’re welcome in town. I’d rather have you here where I know you’re safe than have you out there.”
Jerry slowed as they got closer to the work crew. Grossman could tell why—his brother was getting some really dark looks.
“Thank you. I should let you get on with your rounds,” Jerry said. “Maybe we can chat tomorrow? Breakfast at Miller’s?”
“Tomorrow is a bad day for that. Prange’s trial. I won’t be good company. I can guarantee you that.”
“Fair enough,” Jerry said. “I’ll check in after that’s all settled, all right?”
“Yeah. That would be good.”
16
The day of Daniel Prange’s trial started the same way the day of his arraignment hearing had. Vic Davis quietly unlocked his cell door and brought in breakfast and some dress clothes in a plastic bag. “Shower time in a half hour, then the barber will see you.”
Prange thanked him and took one more look at his notes while he ate. For not being an actual lawyer, Berkman had done a bang-up job of helping him put together a defense. She was also insanely organized, having manually indexed and cross referenced everything. Where she had a specific precedent to cite, she had laboriously hand-copied the relevant decision or opinion, neatly indented and written in clear italics.
When he took the suit out of its bag, he wondered if she’d had a hand in his wardrobe for the day as well. Where the clothes for his hearing fit but were clearly cheap, his trial clothes were a couple solid steps up.
Despite all that, he was certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that she utterly hated him. He both admired her for how hard she was working to give the best-quality assistance she could to somebody she despised, and held her in contempt for placing some nebulous concept of justice so high over her own personal feelings. There was no way Prange would have done what she was doing for an enemy.
When he thought about it, what really left him uncertain about how he felt about Berkman was that she was so absolute in her conviction to do what was right. He hadn’t ever had to work so closely with somebody who held so strongly to a moral compass the way she was when it came to representing somebody that she’d like to see hanged. In his world, he never found himself cooperating with somebody who had strong moral convictions.
If you had them, you didn’t run drugs for a cartel. And there really wasn’t an equal and opposite in the criminal world. There were no criminals who felt an immoral imperative to do the wrong thing. People did the wrong thing because it was easier, or they got trapped into it, or because it was rewarded. Prange had never met anybody who was evil because they felt a mighty internal motivation to be evil.
Berkman showed up while Prange was getting his shave. As always, she kept strictly at the edge of arms’ reach from him. She did not offer a handshake, made no pleasantries, didn’t smile at him. She looked at him with less warmth than he’d seen her look at a ledger book. And yet, she was not rude or short with him. Any question he asked, she answered clearly and thoughtfully.
If she were better company, he would have been glad to have her come by so early. Since she wasn’t, he found her presence annoying, just below the threshold where he’d have shouted at her to just get the hell away from him. Despite her beautifully crafted notes, Prange knew that no judge or jury selected from the town was going to acquit him. So, there was no point in fretting over details or making last-minute refinements to the answers he should give to any questions.
When they finally got into the school auditorium, Prange could feel tangible hostility the moment he entered the
room. Up to that point in the day, he’d only been with Berkman, Davis and one of the other pre-Event cops, and the barber. People that had professional practice at putting on a certain neutral presence.
The auditorium was a different matter entirely, and very different in mood from his arraignment hearing. Then, he was being brought in and given a chance to confess his sins and throw himself upon their mercy. Except that he didn’t. He decided to claim he’d done nothing wrong—about the deaths of their neighbors, friends, and families.
His denial of responsibility seemed to have violated some sort of unspoken agreement that he hadn’t consented to. This unlocked an even deeper, more visceral level of hatred. If the judge were to walk in and say, “Screw the trial. He’s all yours,” Prange was quite certain that he’d be ripped into bloody confetti.
Prange had barely sat down when Davis ordered the room to rise for Father Keller, who would be acting as judge for the trial. Keller was one of Prange’s nominees, picked because the Catholic church was all about process and procedure. He came in wearing full secular attire, except for a small lapel pin from his seminary.
Tom Grossman was sitting in the front row of the audience, holding his own stack of paper. He didn’t recognize any of the people sitting to either side of the mayor, and the light was too weak to make out anybody in the remaining rows.
The prosecution was Marty Oleson, the Deputy Mayor. He’d mostly gone along with Prange and Carter, mostly to cover his own interests, so he hadn’t been locked up. He was a decent enough person, if a little absent-minded and more impressed with himself than the number two guy in a tiny town like Bowman should have been. He’d been useful to Prange. Exactly the kind of elected official that criminals liked: self-centered, convinced he deserved better, and clueless about what was actually going on around him.
Prange wondered if he was hoping to spin his part in the trial into a future run for mayor.
Age of Survival Series | Book 3 | Age of Revival Page 10